Mountain Dew Flavored Marimba
by Shadarii
Summary: This twisted tale has it all... drama, humor, and those little case-interior-bits that end up on your reed no matter how hard you try to get them off.


Mountain Dew is GOOD FOR YOU   
Disclaimer: Guess what? It's all mine!!! HAHAHAHHAHA! True story, too ^_____________^ oh, and the POINT is that it's **over**-dramatized. I WANT it like that.   
  
The mindless mind of Shadarii brings you.... 

the drama.... 

the pain.... 

the glory.... 

The Mountain-Dew Flavored Life 

Of A Clarinetist In The Pit..............................   
  
Dateline, nine-thirty-three AM. Monday, September 17. We had just finished watching last Friday's show, indeed, the first time we had ever marched in front of real humans (well...there _was_ the weight team BUT). I had just taken my hands away from my eyes, having seen myself messing up and therefore messing up the rest of my line. The pain and my shame were doubled when out director held up a pair of scuffed marching shoes that some careless someone had so generously donated to the back room, but were being rejected. Mine, of course.   
And then the TV was turned off, the little blue blips where one of the flags had pressed record instead of play were gone. The incessent chatter of the boneheads who were recording us, ceased. The lights were turned on, and eyes were blinked slowly in pain.   
"That's good, people. Very good," we were told. "Not good enough, though, not yet. It needs work," he said, turning to recieve a pile of lyre-sized paper from our T.A. "..plenty of work, and we will get to it but first." Here was a devious smile, the frightening grin to scare the shakos off all band members. "I have an **idea**."   
"It's called Hoedown. Some of you know it as the main theme from Rodeo, or for the more cultured, the Beef: It's What's For Dinner arrangement." We waited for the bombshell to hit, for our peaceful existance to flounder, indeed, the very foundation of our lives to fall from under us like a trap made from vines and dirt clods! "It's for the pics." A general sigh of relief from the band...we all knew Rodeo and it was SCARY man. "and the percussion," Sighs of pain from the percussionists. The rest of the band was happy. All but those wise and wonderful sages, the clarinets. For we knew, we knew that the devilish gleam in our director's eye had to mean something.   
"The rest of you," and here the climax, "the rest of you will **square dance**."   
Square dancing?? Our fragile minds went speeding from the scene back to faroff days of freshman gym, days when we listened to twangy country music for an hour-and-a-half, a time of patience where we tried to get our peers and colleagues to move WITH THE BEAT. Stars. Promenades. One-Two-Chachacha.   
Speechless.   
And then the protests: "What? Oh no, really?"   
"We can't possibly!"   
"Oh shaddup, you babies!"   
"Wait, will we be dancing with boys or like, other girls? 'Cause like, I am like surrounded by girls in like, the last set. And like, that's kinda gross."   
This he ignored the way a grazing cow will ignore the swarm of bees forming a blanket on his back. He simply waited. When that didn't work, he gracefully bade us to be silent.   
"Hey shut up! Now LOOK. We have three spots open in the pit."   
The pit! I began to remember....   
Way back in seventh grade, five years past, when the concept of "marching band" occured to me, I stared down at my snare drum in chagrin. I was not looking forward to carting the thing all over creation on a little harness. I twirled my 5A (yessir, 5A, can you believe it?) drumsticks around and thought about the instrument I was playing on the side. The Bb Clarinet. So shiny. So pretty. So....light.   
And so it passed. I worked up my clarinet skills to the point where my poor snare became my side instrument. I missed my drum, I missed the chimes and the vibes, I missed the percussionist way of doing every little thing. But by then I really liked my clarinet. And so I was happy.   
Then one fine day, our junior-high director decreed that we would take a trip to the state marching festival to cheer on our local high school, the one I would be attending next year. So we piled into the bus and drove, not knowing what to expect, but eager just the same.   
We sat there with our nachos and Pepsis, watching the first band march proudly on to the field, heads held high, feet moving together, and you were sure that if you were at eye level, it would appear to be one person to a line and not 16. They were big. We were quiet, for once, as they began to play.   
They were good, too. I don't remember the song. The thing I do remember is my friend nudging me and saying, "Hey...wonder why _they_ don't hafta march." And there they were. The pit in all its glory. I watched them and smiled to myself in self-loathing. If I had known that I could simply have switched to bells, I would not be playing the clarinet! But then I shrugged, decided that I liked the clarinet better anyway and swigged my soda. And the percussionist inside me laid herself down to sleep.   
  
  
  



End file.
